MEMOBIAL 



STATE LEGISLATURES 


OF THE 


UNITED STATES. 


BY JOHN W. KING. 


CINCINNATI: 

MORGAN & OVEREND, PRINTERS. 
1849. 
















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AVERMENTS. 

WE ARE CLEARLY IN' A TRANSITION STATE. 

The constitutional expedient to insure the election of Gen, George 
Washington to the first Presidency of the United States, by the un¬ 
trammeled will of the majority of the whole people, has failed as a 
fiindamental principle of government. 

“ The contingent election by the House” is condemned and rejected. 

The substitute, by the nomination of private caucus, is rapidly 
perishing in the conflicts, arid corruptions, and invidious exclusions 
of its owm creation. 

“ The office should neither be sought nor refused,”—W m. Lownds. 


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MEMORIAL 


TO THE 


STATE LEGISLATURES 



UNITED STATES. 


BY JOHN W. KING. 


CINCINNATI: 

MORGAN & OVBEEND, PRINTERS. 
1849 . 




JK 


Eosedown, West Feliciana, La. ) 
November 12th, 1848. J 

To THE Honorable, 

the Speaker of the Senate, and of the House of 
Eeprescntatives of the State of 

the following Memorial is most respectfully forwarded, with the request 
that he will be so good as to bring it to the notice of the House over 
which he presides, in such manner as shall be most agreeable to himself; 
and much oblige 

Yours very respectfully, 

JOHN W. KING. 


i 





MEMORIAL. 


TO THE HONORABLE, THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
OP THE STATE OF LOUISIANA. 

Your memorialist, in approaching your honorable body, would beg most 
respectfully to represent, that he has, in submitting the following Projets 
of amendment of the Federal Constitution, no political ambition whatever 
to gratify — no secret revenge — nopartizan zeal—no personal hatred — 
nor vanity, save that (if it may be so called) of suggesting to the con¬ 
sideration of your Honorable Body, a measure believed to be greatly 
demanded for the public good. 

It is known to your Honorable Body, that the fifth article of the Fed¬ 
eral Constitution distinctly designates and ordains, the manner in which 
that instrument may be amended, either through the intervention of two- 
thirds of “both Houses of Congress;” or by convention on the applica¬ 
tion of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the States, and with the final 
ratification of three-fourths of the Legislatures of all the States. 

Your memorialist would beg leave to say, that he has ever considered 
this fifth article as decidedly the most important in the Federal Consti¬ 
tution. 

1. Because it was designed to perfect the theory of the organic law 
of the confederacy, by the lights of an enlarged experience; as the eighth 
section of the first article was designed to perfect the practical adminis¬ 
tration of the government it had instituted. 

2. Because it provides in the mode of amendment the most effectual 
method to secure the harmony of the confederacy, and the perpetuation 
of the Union. 

3. It is the most important, because, if it should so happen i n the 
course of time, or change of circumstances, or the relations of the States, 
that the Federal Compact becomes inapplicable or burthensome to three- 
fourths of the States, or operates injustice to a small minority, or threat¬ 
ens the whole with demoralization and disorganization, it can be legiti¬ 
mately and harmoniously modified or abolished, if indispensable to the 
ends of justice and order. 

4. It is important, because, while it makes it diificult to change the 
organic law for light and frivolous or transient causes, it furnishes the very 
best constitutional method of subjecting substantial public grievance, or 
threatening public danger, growing either from the strict observance of 



4 


its requirements, or from the subtle evasions, or the open infractions of 
its principles, to the scrutiny of the most enlightened and deliberate in¬ 
vestigation. 

5. It is important, because it assumes that the convention who formed 
the Federal Constitution apprehended that it might not in all its parts 
work out their designs, or the greatest good of the people to whom they 
recommended it as an experiment, subject to the modifications which time 
and experience and patriotism and the changing condition and relations 
of the States and the world might demand; or the usurpations or eva¬ 
sions either of the practical government to stretch and abuse its powers, 
or of private individuals or political organizations, to set them aside, might 
require to prevent silent revolution. 

6. It is important, because, it was foreseen in this fifth article, and in 
the eighth section of the first article taken together, that this government 
must be in part a government of fundamental principles or rules, to make 
it honest, just and stable; and in part a government of policy, or dis¬ 
cretion, or choice, to make it practical, wise, and strong. Hence it was 
ordained, that its policy should always be subjected to its principles, in 
the restriction of its legislative power to “ all laws necessary and proper,” 
to carry into effect the foregoing ( enumerated ) powers, and all others 
conferred by this constitution. 

In the fifth article then, may it please your Honorable Body, we behold 
the wisest provision made for the coming crisis, when the people shall 
rise above or fall heloiv the scale of their government — when the crisis 
shall arrive, in which the true policy and sound discretion and real wants 
of the confederacy, shall come into conflict with the enumerated powers 
and settled principles of the constitution — when the alternative shall be 
presented of Revolution, or Beform — when talented ambition, backed 
by strong local and sectional interest, shall attempt through the ordinary 
legislature the exercise of powers not confided by the constitution, and 
which should not be conferred without the concurrence of more than a 
mere numerical majority, and not without being thoroughly guarded 
against constructive abuse, then the fifth article of your organic law will 
come to be duly estimated. Yes ! may it please your Honorable Body, 
when the strong passions of sordid avarice and unholy military ambition 
— of jealousy and revenge — of popular excitement and individual hatred, 
in the struggles and throes of party rivalships for supremacy, and the 
balance of political power, shall spread their baleful influence and lurid 
glare across this land; then it will be both seen and felt, that in the fifth 
article of your constitution, formed by the old patriots of the B,evolution 
of 1776, is offered the most wise and beneficent scheme that man ever 
projected and adopted to stave off usurpation and abuse — secure true 
“ PROGRESS,” and to perfect national prosperity and happiness. 

It supersedes the necessity of usurping as above observed, substantive 
cardinal powers not “ enumerated ” in the constitution. It supersedes 
the necessity of abusing powers delegated for special purposes, by using 
them as auxiliary powers to accomplish any other purposes than the 
single purpose for which each power was especially delegated. It super- 


5 


sedes the necessity of employing any other means than those which are 
necessary and proper as auxiliary or “incidental powers” for the fulfillment 
of the “ enumerated powers; ” and finally it supersedes the necessity of 
setting up “ King Caucus,” to elect the President and Vice President of 
the United States, under the fraudulent cognomen of “ conventionf to 
disfranchise the people and to enfranchise party, for the express purpose 
of concentrating, if possible, the whole popular vote on a single candidate 
or aspirant nominated by the caucus ; and by consequence deprive each 
individual citizen of the exercise of his own choice, to prevent the “ con¬ 
tingent election by Congress,” and thereby deprive the little State of Dela¬ 
ware of her constitutional right under the Federal Constitution to balance 
the vote of the Empire State of New York, in the event that the 'people, 
voting under the organic laio of the confederacy alone, and not under 
that of King Caucus, should fail to make the election. 

In confirmation of this last statement, it is most respectfully averred 
by your memorialist, that it is known as an incontestible fact — that it is 
avowed as an open purpose — and that it is essential to the discipline of 
party, that a private caucus nomination, by a party, shall be equivalent 
to election by the party, so far at least as the party is concerned. This, 
it is believed cannot and will not be denied, by those who understand the 
subject. 

Your memorialist then would respectfully ask your Honorable Body, 
what has become of the Federal Constitution and the forms it prescribesV 
Surely ! they “have a name to live when they are dead.” Surely! quod^ 
ad this transcendently important matter, at least they are superseded, 
because they are considered defective. The organic law and obligations 
of party have set aside the organic law and patriotism of the people. 
The high behest of King Caucus and the obligations of party fealty, are 
already brought into most dangerous conflict with the freedom of all elec¬ 
tions — of all legislation and of all appointments to office, from the Pres¬ 
ident to the Constable; from the Postmastergeneral to the Tide Waiter. 
Party “platforms and party elections are about being substituted for 
constitutional platforms and constitutional elections;” when the Chief 
Magistrate of this confederacy must necessarily, from the mode of his 
election, become the President of the party which nominated and elected 
him, not the President of the United States as ojficially denominated by 
your Constitution. Otherwise he will be denounced as a traitor, and sat¬ 
irized “ a parenthesis ” or “ a fraud.” But your memorialist will forbear 
to touch all the disastrous consequences and evil workings of the caucus 
innovation. Its theory is bad enough — its history was opened and fore¬ 
shadowed fifty years ago in the Congress of the United States; some of 
whose members still look back to the “Flesh Pots of Egypt.” But it is 
not the purpose of your memorialist to write its history; nor to read 
your Honorable Body a lecture on politics — nor to criticise — nor crim¬ 
inate ; but to pray your attention and consideration of this grave and 
disturbing question, so big with results. What your memorialist has 
above censured, and what he forbears still further to expose, are results 
of defects in the organic law. They are consequences which all good 


6 


and intelligent citizens must see and deplore, and would arrest by private 
expedients if it were possible to do so. But the fearful disease of the 
body politic is not to be cured by the caucus expedients. It is connate 
and organic^ and demands radical reform in the fundamental law of the 
Union— all else is blind or wicked political empiricism. 

To this end, your memorialist would beg leave most respectfully to 
submit to the consideration of your Honorable Body, the following sub¬ 
stitute as an amendment for the twelfth article of the amendments of the 
Federal Constitution. 


“ABTICLE XIY. 

“ On some named day in the month of February, 1852, to be fixed by 
the act of Congress, the clerk of the Senate of the United States for 
the time being, and every four years thereafter, should be required by 
law to prepare and have in readiness, a mahogany box of proper con¬ 
struction for a draft .or lottery box, and just so many ivory balls, as there 
shall be, for the time being. United States Senators duly qualified, all of 
precisely the same form and finish, except one shall be black and marked 
President of the United States, and another shall be red and marked 
Vice President of the United States, and the whole of the balance to be 
white. On the day, appointed by law, it should be made the duty of the 
Vice President, for the time being, to announce the hour for draft or lot¬ 
tery ; when he shall take charge of the box, and in the presence of the 
whole Senate accurately count into it all the balls, when each member of 
the Senate present shall then be required by name and in succession, ac¬ 
cording to any rule of draft which may be established by a majority of 
the Senate, to take one ball from the box until the balls are ex.mnsted 
or tlie election declared by the Vice President in favor of the two Sena¬ 
tors wlio shall respectively have drawn the balls marked President and 
Vice President of the United States, for four years from the 4th of 
March, 1852; and should any qualified Senator be prevented from draw¬ 
ing, by bodily indisposition or unavoidable detention from the Senate, 
then, and in either case, the Vice President shall draw for them; before 
doing which, the name of the Senator he draws for is to be audibly an¬ 
nounced to the whole Senate, so likewise the result of the draft in every 
and each case. When the election is concluded, it shall be made the duty 
of the Senate to announce the result to the House of Bepresentatives, 
and to the President of the United States.” 

In submitting this 'projet of an amendment to the Constitution to the 
consideration of your Honorable Body, your memorialist would beg leave 
most respectfully to state, that for more than ten years, his mind has 
been deeply impressed with the conviction that something radical should 
be done in the premises. He has long felt, and is now most thoroughly 
assured, that there is a deep-seated defect, in the construction of the 
organic law, in relation to the periodical election of the Chief Magistrate 
of this Union, which the private caucus of political party cannot remedy. 




In ruminating upon the subject, the mind of your memorialist has vac¬ 
illated between various projeis of his own creation, invoking the ballot- 
box primarily. But it was found absolutely unattainable through the 
7iumerical majority, except by the fraud of an irresponsible party nom¬ 
ination, misnamed “convention.” It is totally exceptionable though a / 
mere plurality ; and entirely inappropriate to our Federative system of 
State sovereignties which, like the associated worlds of the solar system, 
must harmonize in conformation and action, or perish in the collision. 

“ Confluxns unus—conspiratio unica conscentientia omnicd'’ is as essential 
to our political harmony and union, as it is to that of the physical worlds. 

The result is, that they have been all reluctantly and tardily, but fully, 
surrendered by your memorialist, in favor of an old scheme which was 
submitted to the consideration of the Senate of the United States ( see 
Senate Journal, and volume XIV Encyclopedia Americana'), some forty 
years since, by the late Senator James Hillhouse, from the State of Con¬ 
necticut; who saw at that early day what your memorialist distinctly sees 
NOW, that the Chief Executive office of this Union, so full of personal 
honors and growing patronage, should neither be voted for — nor can¬ 
vassed for — nor intrigued for — nor refused — no ! it should be “ a God 
send.y ■ 

Hence the proposed amendment, which your memorialist prefers to his 
own and to any other which has been suggested, for the following reasons, 
and to which he would beg leave to invoke the attention of your Honor¬ 
able Body. 

First. —Your memorialist prefers it because it is not his own. He 
has therefore no paternal vanity in it to blind him to its faults, or to grat¬ 
ify in pressing its success. 

Second. —Your memorialist prefers it because it does not fiatter popu¬ 
lar vanity, through the exercise of the Elective Franchise, like party 
caucus which promises Eree Suffrage “ to the ear, and breaks it to the 
heart.” 

Third — He prefers it because it addresses itself neither to popular 
passion, nor to popular or sectional prejudices; nor to individual ambi¬ 
tion ; nor to personal or national hatred — but to the patriotism and 
sound discretion of the people. 

Fourth. —He prefers it because it is so simple — so noiseless — so 
definite — so just and equal, and so prompt and certain, and incorrupti¬ 
ble, and absolutely dangerless. 

Fifth. — He prefers it, because it necessarily gets clean rid of “ bar¬ 
gain and corruption;” and of “contingent elections by the House;” 
and of caucus ‘'^packing ; ” and caucus “ availability ” which both of the 
great political parties have at difterent times condemned and despised. 

Sixth. — He prefers it, because it will necessarily operate a selection, 
inasmuch as the nominees under the proposed amendment, can be no 
other than the Representatives of the State sovereignties in the Senate 
of the United States, par nobile fratrum. 

Seventh. — He prefers it, because it will necessarily have the most 


8 


beneficent influence upon the legislative character of both Houses of Con¬ 
gress; but especially on that of the Senate; to confirm its already high 
claim to be considered the most dignified and talented legislative body in 
the world: each member of which becomes under the proposed amend¬ 
ment a soverei^-n, and not a caucus nominee for the Presidency. 

Eighth. — He prefers it, because the President, thus selected from the 
sovereign nominees of each of the States, is properly what his constitu¬ 
tional title now imports — “ The President of the Urdted States” 

Ninth. — He prefers it, because it will bring the President into office 
as a gentleman and on his oath of office and responsibility to his country 
without being abused as a pickpocket, and trameled by party platforms, 
and equivocal declarations of political faith. 

Tenth. — He prefers it, because it effectually suspends the periodical 
convulsions, in our body politic, to dispose of the chief executive crown, 
which threatens to destroy the dignity, the independence, and the utility 
of the political press — to demoralize the people, and to dissolve the 
Union. 

Eleventh. — He prefers it because it most thoroughly abolishes not 
only that portion of the Constitution with which all parties except one 
seem dissatisfied, and have set aside as a failure, but it supersedes its 
substitute, the irresponsible party caucus, to elect the President, which 
already threatens either to perish in the conflicts of its own creation, or 
to become geographical and politico — fanatical, to fight for “ the balance 
of political power.” 

Twelfth. — He prefers it to any other projet which can be offered, 
because it equalizes all the sovereign States in the Senate which has 
always existed in theory, and which always should exist in practice; and 
likewise restores the original equality of the President and Vice Presi¬ 
dent, in the proposed mode of election; which is now destroyed by the 
untoward, but necessary amendment, which discriminated and subordi¬ 
nated the Vice President to harmonize an impracticable system. 

Thirteenth. — He prefers it most decidedly, because the proposed 
amendment would protect some of our ablest and most practical citizens, 
the pride of their country and the idols of their most intimate friends, 
who know them best, against the unscrupulous billingsgate abuse of in- 
tolerent and unmerciful party scrutiny, which assumes that all play is 
fair play in politics; and protects others equally estimable from the deep 
chagrin, and from the unjust and invidious exclusion of their common 
right to the untrarameled suffrages of their fellow citizens, for the offi¬ 
ces of their country, inflicted by irresponsible private party caucus. 

Fourteenth. — Your memorialist would further prefer the scheme of 
the late Senator Hillhouse, because it would make the election from the 
Senate, by lottery and not by the Senate, by ballot or viva voce. The 
former mode of election would make the President a public officer — 
“ President oj the United States, without any motive or obligation to be 
otherwise than the chief magistrate of the Union. The latter would 
make him the instrument — the tool or creature of an organized party in 
the Senate, to do its biddings. 


9 


Fifteenth. —Your memorialist prefers the proposed amendment, be¬ 
cause there is no intrigue in it — no vice — no management — nor can 
he. It is downright, straight forward, and honest; whereas the caucus 
system is a hypocrite and a fraud. It assumes the name of “ eonven- 
vention,” the very highest institution known to our laws, to cheat the 
people, in the control of the free exercise of the elective franchise; the 
most delicate and the most important right known to our laws. It should 
be, the “ Vox Dei ” — the unpolluted fountain of ail law. 

Sixteenth. — Above all, your memorialist prefers the amendment 
to the existing provision of the organic law, because, it would make 
a “fiction” of the election of the President of the United States to avoid 
all the evils and dangers of a periodical struggle for the chief Executive 
ofiice in this country, as in England they have made a fiction of the Ex¬ 
ecutive in the hereditary right of Victoria and the omnipotence Parlia¬ 
ment, to avoid all the evils and dangers of an elective monarchy; and he 
further prefers it to the private caucus, because that gives a fiction of a 
choice, outside of the constitution, with all and more than the evils and 
dangers of a popular election, under the constitution. 

Seventeenth. — Your memorialist, therefore, prefers it, because it fur¬ 
nishes no political leaven to generate either geographical or national 
parties; nor nucleus upon which to fix and organize them. The fermen¬ 
tations to elect Senators in each state, would be as “ tempests in a tea¬ 
pot,” compared with the periodical tornados which the existing system 
generates and concentrates upon the whole Union, simultaneously. 

Eighteenth. — He prefers it, therefore, because it presents to the 
people no ^'‘clarum mirahile nomen^^ to tempt and seduce them to the 
election of some bold and dashing military chieftain who fills the public 
eye, and with whom the end justifies the means, and therein wink at the 
sacrifice of the principles of their Constitution, and blindly cooperate in 
the consummation of their own ruin. It was “ Ccesar aut nuUus^^ that 
ruined Rome. It already threatens America. 

Nineteenth. —But farther. Your memorialist prefers the proposed 
to the caucus system, because in ceasing to organize under that system 
two national or geographical parties, whether Whig or Democrat — Nor¬ 
thern or Southern — Slaveocrat or anti-Slaveocrat — Guelph or Ghibel- 
line — to fight for the Executive succession, and the party triumphs and 
prizes of Executive patronage, the political press will cease to be re¬ 
tained, as Athlete in the game; but the press in each State, as likewise 
its patrons, the people, being untrammeled by politicians and party or¬ 
ganizations, will become the bold expounders of sound political principles 
and policy, and not the subservient instrument retained to propagate 
party slanders, mistify the truth, and throw dust in the public eyes. Re¬ 
leased from the shackles of national and geographical party organizations, 
its salt will become savor — its light will not become “ great darkness ” 
— its compliments will be praises, and its censures will not be slanders. 
But inspired by its legitimate avocation and its true destiny, it will aspire 
to collect facts and makeyi(^5(f inferences from them, without suppression 


10 


or equivocation. Then, when the warder on the watch cries, Wolf I 
Wolf! he will be believed. 

Twentieth. — Your memorialist further prefers the fourteenth amend¬ 
ment, because, although it will completely suspend the political typhoon, 
fraught with moral pestilence and violence, which periodically sweeps 
over the whole Union simultaneously, it will wake up in eoxh State a local 
excitement, in succession, and in detail, to make the election of Senators, 
which will diffuse in each and all the States, a localized, individual action 
around its own political center, and of all, around their common center, 
in which “ all nature’s difference will keep all nature’s peace.” 

Twenty-FIRST. — Your memorialist moreover prefers the fourteenth 
and fifteenth amendments in connection, because they completely sepa¬ 
rate the Legislative and Executive departments of the government — se¬ 
cure popular deliberation and federative control for the veto power, and 
therein wisdom in council, consistency with our system of government, 
and conciliation and imposing influence to this anomalous check of sove¬ 
reign action. It realizes the “ masterly inactivity ” of the people and of 
the confederacy, in patriotic communion of the majority with the minor¬ 
ity, without faction, and jealousy of Executive control, to poison feeling, 
warp deliberation, and complicate and weaken the machinery of Govern¬ 
ment. 

Twenty-second. — Your memorialist prefers both the proposed amend¬ 
ments to the present mongrel system, because they are avowed altera¬ 
tions. and not subtle of the “written national will” — OPEN 

KEFORM, ANL NOT SILENT REVOLUTION. Because they 
prescribe a constitutional method to elect the President and Vice Presi¬ 
dent, out and out, with no contingency, and without covin or device; 
and a Legislative exercise of the “ veto power,” in consistent harmony 
with our form of Government, without equivocation gr evasion, or defer¬ 
ence to the numerical majority. Whereas both parties, in adopting the 
caucus system, to get rid of the “contingent election by the House,” and 
of the sovereign equality of the little State of Delaware, in the election 
of President and Vice President of the United States, see and acknowl¬ 
edge, by that very act, the “dead point ” in the working of the machin¬ 
ery of the organic law; and to obviate its clear but hated results, have 
set up a private, organized power, outside of the Constitution, which 
makes a mouthpiece of the Executive—destroys the independent and 
fearless exercise of the veto power by party platforms and equivocal dec¬ 
larations of political faith — and thereby change the mixed, form of the 
General Government, from being partly national, federative, and 

partly popular, into that of the numerical majority (King Numbers) of 
a dominant political or geographical party, headed and trained and fought 
in the Presidential “campaign,” by practiced politicians. 

Your memorialist, therefore, would most respectfully ask, if we must 
needs have a “ fifth wheel,” to carry us ^'beyond the dead point in our 
organic law to elect the President and Vice President of the United 
States, why not openly frame it to the existing machinery ? Why not 
organize it as a part of the fundamental law to make it secure, steady, har- 


11 


monious, salutary, and certain in its action ? Why leave that to individ¬ 
ual volition and secret management, which should be fixed by law, and be 
made as open as the sun at midday ? But that would be an alteration 
of the Constitution, which is sacred, and should never be touched. But 
why openly deprecate, abjure, and abhor, all alterations of the Constitu¬ 
tion, and at the very same moment, in the same subject matter, mistify 
its plain meaning (quo animo), and secretly practice an evasion of one of 
its contingent provisions, contemplated and provided for in a special man¬ 
ner, by the Constitution itself? Why not ordain, that the people, every 
four years, at the polls, shall, in each Electoral District throughout the 
Union, elect a NOMINATOR of President and Vice President of the 
United States, to meet on a given day, after the election, which should 
be on the same day in each District throughout the Union, at Baltimore, 
or some other place, to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice 
Presidency of the United States? That in order to prevent the “con¬ 
tingent election by the House,” and to neutralize the sovereign constitu¬ 
tional equality of the little State of Delaware with the Empire State of 
New York, and thereby procure and secure the election of one of the 
nominees by the numerical majority of the people, there shall be but 
two nominees — one Whig and one Democrat, or one north, and one 
south, of “ Mason and Dixon’s Line.” That there shall, of course, be no 
other “ regular candidates ; ” and that those who are refractory, and who 
do n’t choose to vote for one of the regular nominees, shall be disfran¬ 
chised either of his choice or of his vote ; and should he dare to be in¬ 
dependent and not vote, punish him for delinquency in failing to vote at 
the polls; or denounce him as a traitor, giving aid and comfort to incor¬ 
rigible— the common enemy to both the parties!! 

If, therefore, the caucus system, thus openly established and ruled by 
the fundamental lawjjbf the whole people, is so ridiculous and monstrous 
to contemplate, how^iall we long endure the very same system privately 
organized and imposed by politicians, and ruled by the acknowledged, 
indispensable discipline of private party? But if the caucus system, 
stripped of its fraudulent, hypocritical assumption of being a “ Conven- 
tionf and exposed as a proscriptive despotism, is too shocking and in¬ 
congruous to be dovetailed to our harmonized machinery of equal govern¬ 
ment, why not ordain that every four years, the people in each Electoral 
District throughout the Union, on the same day, shall elect at the polls a 
Presidential and Vice Presidential Elector for each District, who should 
be required on a named day, within sixty days after the election day, to 
convene at the seat of the General Government, and there organize 
themselves into an Electoral College to receive nominations for twenty- 
four hours only, and then should be required continuously to ballot, 
and drop, after each successive ballot, the lowest number from the nomi¬ 
nations first made, until the majority of the Electors present shall elect, 
first, the President, and in succession the Vice President of the United 
States, and shall certify their election to the ensuing Congress. Provi¬ 
ded hotoever, that no man holding an office of honor or profit under the 
General Government, shall be eligible to said College; nor shall any 


12 


member thereof be eligible to any office of honor or profit under the Pre¬ 
sident or Vice President elected by the College. 

But it must be apparent to your honorable body, that, although this 
ordination would be infinitely superior to the preceding, in compactness 
and symmetry, and to the present system of intrigue and anarchy to 
elect the President and Vice President by private party nominations, yet 
it is clear that it would neither kill off King Caucus, nor save the peo¬ 
ple or the press from the strife and corruption generated by the political 
Olympiad of the present system, to win and award the chief executive 
crown, with the growing honors and increasing prizes of each executive 
succession. With the Proviso, the College of Electors would become 
the political arena of sectional jealousy and individual rivalship — na¬ 
tional or geographical parties would be organized in view of its periodi¬ 
cal struggles at the seat of the General Government, where the combat¬ 
ants would be placed toe to toe, to fight for party, if not directly for 
themselves. But loiihout the Proviso, the College would become a Ger¬ 
man or a Polish “ Diet,’’ to concoct and elaborate schemes of discord and 
corruption. And although the proviso “ teaches good doctrine,” as was 
lately said at Baltimore, it would nevertheless be totally exceptionable 
with both the parties. With the venal and the ultra it would be odious 
and unpropitious to their feelings and selfish calculations; and to those 
not so, it would appear proscriptive and insulting, or disrespectful to the 
members of the College to disfranchise them of their rightful eligibility 
to office, through the gratuitous implication of possible dishonesty. The 
alternatives, then, of its adoption, either with or without the Proviso, 
will be all the evils of a popular election of Electors, every four years, 
on the moral character of the press and of the great body of the people, 
with the political Olympiad at the seat of the General Government, to 
award and distribute the executive power and the ^zes of executive pa¬ 
tronage, either to persons or to party. ^ 

Whether, therefore, may it please your honorable body, you should 
legalize and regulate the Caucus, and thereby change the mixed charac¬ 
ter of our form of government — transform it by the force and authority 
of organic law, and not by the organization and discipline of party, into 
a government of the numerical majority, without failure or contingency 
to elect the President by party—or whether you adopt the \ 2 i&i projet, 
to elect him by “ conclave,” as at Borne, or by a “ Diet ” of the confede¬ 
ration at Washington City, we are met by insuperable objections to either 
projet. But to that of the late James Hillhouse, your memorialist has but 
one substantial objection, viz., it is unpopular. It has been, and he appre¬ 
hends will be again, rejected. Not on account of any inherent or practi¬ 
cal defects in the projet itself, but, first, because it is an avowed altera¬ 
tion of the Constitution; second, because of the JEALOUSY of the 
two organized political parties, who regard it as a common enemy, and fear 
it as an aggressor that threatens to break their ranks, and diminish their 
relative strength; third, because it is not in profession ultra Democratic, 
and therein does not flatter popular vanity or feed popular excitement in 
voting at the polls, although the people at this moment are in caucus 


13 


leadingstrings, and virtually disfranchised of their choice or of their votes, 
by “party discipline.” And fourth, because it does not serve the pur¬ 
pose of those politicians who delight to dabble, as before remarked, in 
the muddy waters of party strife, created by party zeal, “ not according 
to knowledge.” And fifth, because it does not nominate and always 
secure the election to the Presidency with unerring certainty, the most 
practiced, farreaching, and independent statesman, who never stoops to 
low intrigue, but would make a lottery of the Senate, and an election by 
the draftbox. 

It is true, that the scheme of James Hillhouse, by the draftbox, is 
classic in its origin, and not altogether unknown to ancient Republics. 
The proposed institution, therefore, should neither be denounced nor 
sneered at, on that account, by those who know nothing of its origin and 
its antiquity. It is true, that its “availability” for true patriotism and 
experienced statesmanship, is wholly restricted or limited to the Senate 
of the United States; and that it is essentially dependent upon the sove¬ 
reign States of this Union, to place no man in the Senate, unworthy to 
be the Chief Magistrate of the whole Union, and incapable of being the 
masterspirit of his own Cabinet; and of the whole of whom, the future 
philosopher, “journeying from afar to behold our glory,” might not truly 
exclaim, here, too, there are none but gods.’^ 

But although the draftbox should not always secure from the Senate 
its very highest genius and abilities for civil government, it will never 
fail to procure for the nation the highest order of moral worth, sound 
practical knowledge in government, and undoubted patriotism. AVhereas 
the party ballotbox, in view of “ availability,” and the triumphs of party 
conflict, may rather seek victory than qualification—the “ spoils of of¬ 
fice,” than the highest abilities to fulfill its duties. Hence in the open 
and direct contest for office, the talented, thorough-going statesman, of 
real independence, and of sound political honesty, who never stoops to 
low intrigue to get into office, may retire or be driven by the ballotbox 
from the canvass, in secret to mourn over the folly of “ poor human na¬ 
ture,” and to pray, “Forgive them. Father, they know not what they do;” 
while the artful and the aspiring, the nose-counting, and the ignorant, 
hang around the people, curse whom they curse and bless whom they 
bless, and minister, upon every occasion, to popular prejudice, and popu¬ 
lar avarice, and popular vanity, to secure availability for the party, and 
through it, the “loaves and fishes” for themselves. 

And sucli, may it please your honorable body, are the relative 
CHANCEvS to be offered in future, for the higltest order of talents and 
practical statesmanship, by the direct election of President and Vice Pre¬ 
sident, through the ballotbox, governed by private party caucus, and 
guided by availability; and the indirect election, from the Senate, 
through the draftbox, filled by the sovereign States, under all the high 
impulses of public utility and state pride, to emulate each other, and to 
compare, without humiliation, tlicir respective representatives with their 
noble compeers of the Senate. 

It would appear necessarily to result then, may it please your honora- 


14 


ble body, from all the premisewS, that the proposed mode of electing the 
President and Vice President of the United States, can exert no other 
than a beneficial influence upon each and all concerned. Upon each and 
all the States it will confer equality, individuality, dignity and responsi¬ 
bility. Whereas the present system is dwarfing all these, and merging 
the States into sectional and party organizations, geographical and na¬ 
tional. 

Upon the Senate it will confer a lofty bearing, a patriarchal sublimity 
of character, in the conscientious conviction that it embosoms the future 
President of this magnificent confederacy of sovereign States. Whereas 
the present system of “Presidentmaking,” already impairs its harmony 
and dignity, and threatens to make it, with the lower House, a beargar¬ 
den of factious prizefighters for the Executive crown, and the bribes of 
Executive patronage. 

Upon the people it will operate to bestow light and fraternal feeling, 
through the reformed press, which would not then be the retained Athlete 
to keep alive the party fight, and to bring “off” the struggle every four 
years; but it will become the true “savor” of popular morals and har¬ 
monious feeling, and the “light of the world.” 

And upon the President himself, divested of all legislative power, un¬ 
der the proposed fifteenth amendment, it imposes no duties incompatible 
with his legitimate executwe functions — places him in harmony with the 
whole nation, and disenthralls him from all personal and party obliga¬ 
tions ; and likewise releases him from the embittered, organized opposi¬ 
tion of a defeated, political party press, by which he has been denounced 
and slandered, and which boasts of being able to “ break down any ad¬ 
ministration, not backed by numerous ofliceholders, and a wealthy, well- 
established aristocracy.” But should there be opposition, which can 
never cease, so long as men are free to discuss and seek the truth, it will 
rally under the flag of measures, not men — of principles, not party — of 
the Constitution, not names. 

Twenty-third.— Your memorialist therefore prefers the proposed 
fourteenth amendment, in connection with the fifteenth, hereinafter 
to be submitted, for the election of President and Vice President of the 
United States, to the present system, in connection with the Caucus, be¬ 
cause it is founded in durability, and looks to eternity. Because from its 
inherent equality, justice, and definitiveness, it works order, harmony, 
and peace. Because it is moralizing and ennobling, and therefore civili¬ 
zing and conservative. Whereas, the present system was formed for 
General George Washington — for time, and not for eternity — for the 
MAN, and not for men. Hence, as an expedient to secure his certain 
election, it has worked, is working, and will work, dissatisfaction, discord, 
and demoralization. Hence, it threatens, in connection with the party 
caucus, to become vitiated, degraded, and dangerous to the Union, and 
is surely destined to perish in the ambitious conflicts and jealous seces¬ 
sions of its own creation. Hence, in the periodical conflicts for the 
crown, we already see the the ensign of war, vauntingly “ flung 

to the breeze, at the masthead of the press,” and the campaign^^ an- 


15 


nounced by that bulwark of liberty, strangely transformed into the bul¬ 
wark of war, in utter disregard of the eternal truths (results) “ that he 
who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword; ” and that the abuse 
of the press is the ultimate subversion of the press, morally and politi¬ 
cally. 

It is believed by your memorialist that the illustrations above presented 
for your consideration are not fanciful — that they are transcendently 
important and founded in undeniable facts. But the proposed fourteenth 
amendment does not supply in this connection all that is wanted. In re¬ 
organizing the executive department^ your memorialist would beg leave 
most respectfully to make one other suggestion in harmony with the 
above scheme of election, viz;” 

That the executive veto, about which so much has been said and felt, 
shall be transferred to the Senate by the following amendment to the 
seventh Section, and first Article. 

“ARTICLE XV. [amendment.] 

“ No bill shall be passed by Congress into a law, the constitutionality 
of which has been raised and discussed; or which shall be deemed by 
the President and Attorney General, disrespectful to the President or an 
invasion of the jurisdiction of the executive department, without the 
concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses. Provided nevertheless, that 
the same bill may be passed by the succeeding Congress, by a majority 
of the Lower House with the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate.” 

This additional modification, may it please your Honorable Body, taken 
in connection with the first above proposed, does seem to your memorial¬ 
ist to promise all the benefits claimed for the veto power as now exer¬ 
cised by the President under the seventh section, first article, of the Fed¬ 
eral constitution; and to obviate all the objections ofifered to its exercise, 
by those who denounce it as “ the one man power.” In detaching all 
legislative power from the President, the office becomes purely executive 
as now organized and filled by caucus nominations, and administered upon 
“ platform” principles, or under those of the constitution as “ he under¬ 
stands it,” the President is compelled, by his obligations to party or by his 
oath of office and the words of the constitution which are clear, impera¬ 
tive, and unequivocal, to be involved in all the supervisions of ordinary 
legislation. He is necessarily forced into all the struggles and collisions 
of party politics, from the canvass to the cabinet. And why ? To delay 
legislation and to protect himself, and the minority, and the constitution 
against hasty aggressive legislation. Surely! these purposes are just as 
effectually accomplished and secured under the delay provided for in the 
proposed amendment; and by the voice of the people and the States in 
the new Congress; and by the final veto of less than two-thirds ot the 
Senate, by whom the States and the Executive will be effectually pro¬ 
tected against the numerical majority in the Lower Flouse, should two- 
thirds of both Houses (now sufficient) not concur in the first instance to 
pass the bill. In addition the one man veto power being absorbed in 



16 




Congress, leaves the Executive Department free from legislative distrac- 
tion, and the Congress from Executive interference to control legislation 
by sub-rosa management and Executive influence. 

But your memorialist would beg leave most respectfully to represent, 
that the proposed fifteenth amendment would not only aim to make the 
President a purely Executive officer, and protect him against the distrac¬ 
tions and rivalships in Congress, but to secure him against the embar¬ 
rassing dilemma which was presented to Washington, Jefferson, and Mad¬ 
ison, of signing bills, through courtesy and deference to the majority in 
Congress, which their judgments did not approve. Yet, that “ approval’^ 
is without discrimination or exception imperatively made the condition 
precedent to sanction authentication by the constitution. It will more¬ 
over be further seen by your Honorable Body, that the proposed amend¬ 
ment relates to no other bills, than those in which the issues raised are 
either personal to the President or of contested Executive jurisdiction, 
or of Constitutional power on the part of Congress, all others which ex~ 
clusively belong or appertain to pure questions of expediency or common 
or personal right, &c. &c,, in which the “ end is not made to justify the 
means” which must always be “ necessary and proper,” are exclusively 
reserved to the numerical majority in Congress for final decision, under 
the seventh section, first article, as above adverted to. 

In conclusion, your memorialist would further remark, that the pres¬ 
ent and past ages may be donominated, among other names, the ages of 
“secret societies,” of “clubs,” of “banquets,” and of “caucus,” all of 
which may be defined to be OBGfANIZED associations of private indi¬ 
viduals, outside of the established government, to revolutionize it, or to re¬ 
form it, or to control it, and substitute its administration by communist 
loill, or the club will, or the banquet will, or caucus will. 

But however necesssary these may have been in many cases under 
absolute forms of government, without written constitutions, it must be 
apparent to your honorable body, that the fifth article of the federal con¬ 
stitution— the freedom of the Elective Franchise, and the entire liberty 
of the press, render them unnecessary and improper among us. They are 
in fact founded among us either in absurdity or in wickedness. They are 
either rebels against the people, or they are the people, clubbing against 
themselves. If, therefore, reform is sincerely desired and thought very 
necessary, as it most sincerely is by your memorialist, the constitutional 
key of reform is in our own hands. Neither violence nor stealth, covin 
or device, are necessary among us to enter the temple erected to “ well- 
regulated Liberty and the rights of man,” to put it in order. No! Ne¬ 
ver ! Our citizens, therefore, should not be familiarized either with 
“lynch law,” or “club laws,” or “banquet reform,” or “caucus plat¬ 
forms,” or with evasion or violation of any part or of the whole of the 
federal constitution, but so long as it is what it is, it should be respected 
and sustained by all — evaded or violated by none. 

For all which, as in patriotic duty bound, your memorialist will ever 
pray. 

November 12, 1848, JOHN W. KINO, 


LBJL ’05 















LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


0 019 308 949 5 








